Prince Of Norway Haakon

Norwegian royalty, the son of King Harald V and Crown Prince of Norway. On 1/12/2000, he announced his engagement to a girl at Oslo. He was living with his long-term lover, Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, in a modest Oslo apartment and helping her to raise her child by a former boyfriend, apparently setting a bad example for his buddy, Prince Felipe of Spain, who is making a twosome with a leggy model, a commoner. In Norway, unmarried cohabitation is common and almost half of all children are born out of wedlock; however royalty is generally expected to be more circumspect. The couple married on 8/25/2001 in a fairy tale wedding at Oslo Cathedral, 5:00 PM with the completion of the ceremony ("I do") at 5:40 MEDT, letting loose a street party of perhaps 100,000 celebrants. Haakon grew up unspoiled in an environment of understated privilege. Though the royal family maintains eight residences, he and his two-year-older sister, Princess Martha Louise, spent most of their carefree early years at the dad's childhood home, Skaugum in the town of Asker. He is accustomed to bucking tradition. He attended public schools and earned his degree, not at Oxford like his father and grandfather, but at Berkeley, California in 1999. After high school, he entered the Navy for a year, followed by advanced studies at the Royal Norwegian naval Academy and a year's internship on a missile torpedo boat. He also became a airplane pilot before completing his education in America. He loves all kinds of music, theater, and enjoyed exploring his adopted city. He and Hoiby moved in overlapping social circles where Haakon continued his studies with law and she was taking anthropology. After their engagement, Hoiby transferred her attention to the study of Norwegian Royalty as taught by her future mother-in-law, Queen Sonja, 64, mother of Haakon and his sister, Princess Martha Louise, 29. Sonja was a commoner herself before her marriage to Harald in 1968. Haakon has an annual government-funded salary of $150,000 which will increase to $653,000 when he marries. Hoiby's son Marius will be a full fledged member of the family but without any royal titles or right to the throne. Link to Wikipedia biography